My name is Rose and I am a Canadian freelance writer. I love to tackle human rights issues and anything related to the betterment of society and our planet.
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Paul and Seth didn't bank on these women

who figured out exactly what is going on already

Too Bad Some

Women are Smarter

Sorry to offend you guys - but in the case of Squidoo being acquired by HubPages, it would appear that the straight-shooting, honest writers (who just happened to be female) figured things out long before Seth and Paul thought it was possible.

Just when I thought I could sit back and wait for the IC3 to respond to my report (which is free for anyone to file, without a lawyer), I came across some brilliant posts by two writers I've always admired.

On September 27th, 2014 around 1 pm poetvix wrote the following in a Squidoo forum thread titled Topic: Sigh...they are unpublishing my hubs.[1]What initially struck me about the OP [not poetvix] is that I recall reporting a link on one of his/her lenses that led to something completely unacceptable. Nothing was done about it.

Here are a few points poetvix made:

"Traffic at HP for squids is tanking at alarming rates. They knew it would happen, expected it and it seems per their own words it’s what they wanted."

"Basically, what this buy out has done is damn all squid writers going there to a minimum of several months of Google hell. Our sinking allows HP prior based pages to rise. It’s simple math."

"At this point I’m not sure which is worse, the deliberate deception or those making comments supporting it while they watch themselves and their friends suffer just because they are afraid of being slapped on author scores."

I completely agree with her summation.

Wondering About the Proof?

Two days ago, Paul Edmondson wrote a post titled Significant Traffic Change for Imported Accounts.[2] In it, he states:

"...it looks like established HubPages accounts are holding up well (there is always some movement up and down). This is what we want."

He makes this conclusion:

"Many imported accounts share a similar style. It appears that this Google update is particularly hard on it."

What's HubPages going to do?

Paul Edmondson states they will "work on recommendations for people that are interested in best practices..."

I Let Corey Brown Know Publicly

not to alter my URLs or move my work

I may be backtracking a bit here, but for those of you away for the last two weeks of August, Seth Godin boldly announced that "HubPages is acquiring key content from Squidoo."

Later, Corey Brown wrote a post titled An Update on September Earnings.[3] His last line states:

"In other words, any revenue generated by lenses will be paid for as long as they remain live on Squidoo."

Oh, but this was deceptive and led people to believe they would be paid everything they were entitled to for July and August.

Any revenue generated actually meant ONLY Amazon and eBay royalties for the preceding 60 day pay period (and August) if you deleted your content/account on or before August 29th, 2014. I publicly posted the screenshot proof.

By deleting your work or account in August, you forfeited your ad pool share for that pay period. Oh and we still do not know about "small payments" from "some partners who pay late" do we?

Paul, Stealing Peoples' Content and Identity

without asking for permission first could be why

Credit: RoseWrites on InfoBarrel / All rights reserved

Credit: RoseWrites on InfoBarrel

Thought I'd Check Out Paul's Profile

Would you look at that! He joined 8 years ago, has some "Author Score" (I'm guessing) of 95, 200 Hubs, and 3,646 Followers.

I never joined HubPages, the first email in my inbox (unopened) has the subject line: sousababy: Your Lenses Have Been Imported!

I guess Paul thought I'd be pleased somehow - especially if there is an exclamation point tacked on at the end.

Hmm, what about best practices Paul?

Does that include theft of my profile photo and all of my content (except my payment information, of course)? I mean, why make it easy for you to pay me at all? Just take my identity and my work and put your ads on them, sit back, and collect money from my hard work instead. [I guess Seth Godin told you it was okay].

If I was away the last two weeks of August, offline, or deceased, apparently my entire profile and content would have also been posted so HubPages can make money from it. Oh but they may never have intended to pay me - unless I submit my payment info to them?

And look Paul, I have a score of 75 without ever joining HubPages!

I wonder now, don't you? How many fake accounts are on HubPages because of this "business" transaction?

Enter Another Woman Who Knows

In the comments section of Paul Edmondson's post Significant Traffic Change for Imported Accounts, Writer Fox cuts through all of the misconceptions and excuses that former Squidoo veterans try to come up with for the traffic loss.

Here are her key points:

"Panda has now targeted HubPages for low quality content, and it will affect the entire site – not just individual subdomains. Since 2012 Google has treated subdomains and subdirectories equally on a website."

She warns that the impending Penguin update will target webspam (which has increased on HP, obviously).

Her advice is "NoIndex all Hubs which have not passed QAP" and she suggests that new Squidoo work (which hasn't passed QAP) could be "transferred back to the Squidoo domain until they pass QAP."

Her conclusion: "Nothing has been gained traffic-wise in this transfer of content to HubPages."

She knows.

I'm not surprised at all that former Squidoo veterans tried to quash her concise line of reasoning. There was a blackhat-practicing SEO group that dominated in the old Squidoo forum (now on HubPages) who tried to bash anyone who had proof of what they were doing. I know, I reported many of them. Sadly, little (if anything) was done about it.

And in response to the remark:

"This advice is nonsensical since there is no way to transfer back Squidoo hubs to Squidoo."

Writer Fox says (and I agree):

"The programmers who imported the content know how to export it as well. They are very good at what they do." HA, good one.

And further along she assures many of them:

"The site is still online and will be for quite some time, with or without content. Those 301 redirects have to redirect from Squidoo(dot)com, so it has to remain online for that to happen."

Lastly, Why I Am Writing This

If I can publicly protest the transfer of my work - and it still ends up on HubPages, can you imagine what a horrible precedent this could set for every writer online?

It would mean that future "mergers" would see your identity and work end up making money for some other (perhaps unknown) writing platform. A platform that may NEVER pay you (unless you submit some kind of personal payment information).

A scary thought indeed.

I just hope more people will file IC3 reports (even if you deleted your work/account in August). There is clear proof that people were under duress to do so. I leave you with a key piece of evidence shown next.

Comments

How ironic. I'm guessing the squashers are the same ones that came to Squidoo's defense time and again when they kept making changes that were in no contributor's best interest. Even with evidence plainly in front of them they refuse to believe what has been presented.
I remember coming across some forum posts on Squidoo by individuals that predicted and shared their intel on how and why the site will meet its demise. Nobody wanted to hear it till that big announcement came; though there was still those in denial.
Reading this article brought to mind two articles, one of which I'm still transferring, where there were loads of errors within the content but went unnoticed for years. It was pretty disappointing to see low quality work rise in the ranks while the low quality work just fell.
Am starting to think this incident in itself is a/effecting other platforms as well. Thanks for sharing this wonderful intel.

Reply to this Comment

Yeah, I was fortunate to be told about InfoBarrel many months ago.
There certainly was no "fair" system in place on Squidoo - I think there were loopholes in the lensrank algo which was exploited and staff who ignored reports (or were too overwhelmed to care). There was a great deal of favouritism. Quality work was usually stuck in tier 3 while I saw the same stuff for years almost "glued" into position in tier 1.
I do think that other platforms are being inundated with Squidoo (perhaps HubPages) writers. The key thing that is important for InfoBarrel is they maintain the highest standards. (And as fellow writers, we should be mindful of that and report anything spammy/inappropriate).
Thank you once again for checking out, commenting, and supporting my efforts with this. I appreciate your contributions.